I have been inspired by @Bobbi’s post on the semantics of the phrase Stroke Warrior and what nomenclature we assign to ourselves, if any, to air my own thoughts on this topic.
This post, however, is about the use of recovery to define post stroke life going forwards. Recovery, for me post stroke, always seemed redundant, it assumed that I would return to the same state of being I had prior to six TIAs and a stroke. I don’t think I will ever return to that state of being, even just the fact of having had a stroke has affected who I am now, and the aftershock, regardless of the symptoms, is an irreplaceable part of my life journey. So, recovery didn’t sit well with me. I used, instead, the term rebuilding but now that doesn’t seem quite befitting. Rebuilding alludes to some sort of completion at the end of it all, and I know that I will never be a complete idyll, even had I not suffered a stroke. I think rebuilding is suitable for the brick and mortar of life; driving a car, being able to walk again, returning to work, &c. I don’t think it applies well to the psychological pilgrimage undertaken after being struck. I know that the windmill of my mind that I have attempted to rebuild has turned out, architecturally, to be more akin to a structure drawn by Dr Seuss than by anything designed by Walter Gropius. Of course, this is all just prattling from my own logical view of things. I now like to think that I am rewiring because it feels the most pragmatic and fit for purpose when I consider the idea of recovery or rebuilding. As with my use of the phrase brain damage, it all seems to come down to necessitating or encouraging alternative pathways to compensate the pathways that have now been obstructed. I find myself a cognitive mad scientist, a Victor Frankenstein, yanking levers and punching buttons, in order to spark a current that will bring a new pathway to life, and when even the most subtle evidence of that is apparent, I clasp my hands and howl with maniacal laughter.
So, in a sense, I am a brain technician, an amateur one at that. I am a bit of a logophile, I enjoy thinking about language and its uses, it’s all grist for the mill. When I apply a term like rewiring, as opposed to recovery or rebuilding, I tend to have a clearer view in my head of what I am doing. I dismissed the term recovery early on after stroke, and found that, in doing so, it meant that three years on without having recovered doesn’t bother me as much as it would have had I thought I would, down the line, have regained what I had prior to stroke.
Addendum: I have to tag onto the end of this post, the best phrase I have heard yet, from @EmeraldEyes, which is Stroke Sparky.
